MSWord and the paperclip of doom.
Ok, so I've got a little bit of a moan to make. I'd like to moan about MSWORD, and more specifically, that annoying little paperclip that takes great pride in suggesting to the world to change their supposedly grammatically-incorrect work for the better.
I don't know what's worse - the fact the paperclip doesn't get things right in the first place, or the fact people blindly follow its every direction to the letter. You see it has an awful habit of getting its grammar wrong in the most annoying of circumstances. One of its favourite mistakes is the use of its and it's (its of course being possessive of something, it's being a contraction of it-is). The amount of times I've come across an its that's been incorrectly changed to an it's in printed editions of LeNurb is unbelievable. And the problem is of course, that it's ME who takes the blame for these grammatical mistakes as it's my name that's under the delightful heading of 'features sub-editor'.
So what's the solution?
Well the solution is the same solution it's always been since long before computers came along and Microsoft gave us the annoying paperclip-of-grammatical-doom. The solution is to PROOF READ YOUR WORK. Don't take everything your computer tells you as being the gospel truth. Remember that it's only offering suggestions; not solutions.
Remember my golden rule for problem sentences: read over the sentence slowly, and in your head work out precisely what it is you're trying to say with your contraction. In fact, re-read over the previous sentence and check my contractions and possessives...
read over the sentence slowly, and in your head work out precisely what it is you are trying to say with your [i.e. yours/belonging to you] contraction
A little bit of proof-reading goes a long way to making me a happy sub-editor :)